Netball: Aitken to press points with Silver Ferns

The Silver Ferns are in for some stern words today before their Commonwealth Games netball match against England tonight.

The New Zealanders beat South Africa 74-37 at Melbourne's State Netball Centre last night but coach Ruth Aitken wasn't happy with their third quarter effort.

The players were trying to push their passes too much and their attacking game lacked structure.

"I thought we were tentative in our movements in the circle so we need to be more definite," Aitken said last night.

"I felt we should have been able to assert more dominance.

"I'm not sure whether they just looked at the scoreline and thought it was ease-up time but they certainly can't tomorrow."

Aitken said her defenders won some great ball.

"But we just gave it away too cheaply and we can't do that."

Looking to fourth-ranked England, Aitken said she was expecting a tough match.

"At the defensive end, they are hassley and have really long arms and will try to cut down our to the shooters.

"Our ability to break, to use angles and to attack smartly will be important."

Centre Temepara George agreed with Aitken about the lack of control on speed through the court.

"I think we got a bit too fast for ourselves at some stage. We got the ball down too quickly and didn't give the shooters enough time to set up -- or the South African defence did a good job in shutting down our space."

She expected a hard match against England, who are the only two unbeaten teams in group one, while Australia and Jamaica share that honour in group two.

They are New Zealand's second last preliminary game, with Malawi their opponents on Thursday, before the semfinals on Saturday.

South African coach Marlene Wagner was pleased with her players.

"I'm very proud of my team. I thought they did extremely well and the fact this is the lowest score New Zealand have put up against us for a very long time.

"We made too many unforced errors which could have been put into goals. I think we really gave New Zealand a hard game although the scoreboard doesn't say as much as it should have been."

- NZPA